Designing the Mysteries of Outer Wilds (Alex Beachum)

Pretentious Game Ideas

We're super excited to be joined by Alex Beachum, creative director of Outer Wilds, the time-looping space exploration game that won the Independent Game Festival's grand prize back when it was still a student project.

Together we explore the story of the game's seven year development cycle before diving deep into how Alex and the team at Mobius Digital created a mystery game that spans an entire solar system. How did they make sure that players would be motivated to investigate each separate plot thread? How did they prevent players from ever feeling lost or directionless? How did they do all of this without ever placing a map marker or opening a quest log? You'll have to listen to found out!